"Am I out of touch?" No, it's the children who are wrong!" My take on NHL's marketing
- Thread starter King In The North
- Start date
Dertell
Registered User
- Jul 14, 2015
- 2,923
- 474
I agree with most of this.
People tend to use sports or medias in general as a mean to escape from real life, find some inspiration, etc and kids loving watching people who look like them kick butt and succeed. Thus, hockey should be extremely popular due to its fast-paced and simple nature. Yet, the people in charge of the product seems to actively try to re-create our boring and frustrating work environment and real life by vilifying flashy-ness and individual style and push for the same old conventional ways - this extends to body physics and appearance.
I don't think the league's marketing is separated from everything else and is largely the product of a culture or trains of thought, for lack of better words, that has not aged very well. Turns out an obsession with "keeping things simple" and faux defense, downright pathetic internet services (unless you can pay) and blatant racism and cartoonish ableism tend to alienate many demographics. Also the ticket + travel prices are way too costly for the game-by-game implications.
People tend to use sports or medias in general as a mean to escape from real life, find some inspiration, etc and kids loving watching people who look like them kick butt and succeed. Thus, hockey should be extremely popular due to its fast-paced and simple nature. Yet, the people in charge of the product seems to actively try to re-create our boring and frustrating work environment and real life by vilifying flashy-ness and individual style and push for the same old conventional ways - this extends to body physics and appearance.
I don't think the league's marketing is separated from everything else and is largely the product of a culture or trains of thought, for lack of better words, that has not aged very well. Turns out an obsession with "keeping things simple" and faux defense, downright pathetic internet services (unless you can pay) and blatant racism and cartoonish ableism tend to alienate many demographics. Also the ticket + travel prices are way too costly for the game-by-game implications.
I agree with this. They are definitely taking things for granted and have lost touch on how to build their fanbase.
Agree with this mostly. Some of my experiences as an international fan:
-you can't get official NHL app on your phone, "not available in your area".
-Local operator that has Nordic rights for NHL (Viasat / Viaplay) apparently decided with NHL to block Nordic IP's from NHL.com highlights so that Viaplay's own new NHL portal with the same highlights would get more hits.
They didn't realize that they also blocked all the video content on flames.nhl.com as well. After furious feedback they canceled this thing, or in their own words, technical problems were fixed as they didn't confess what they were doing.
-I can use NHL.tv (as I have Viaplay subscription), but only through browser. Android app and chromecast would give a bit better quality and a lot better usability but that's a no.
-NHL's shop doesn't not deliver to Finland, the international version has a really crappy selection (only two Flames hoodies, for example)
Well, at least there are no blackouts.
-you can't get official NHL app on your phone, "not available in your area".
-Local operator that has Nordic rights for NHL (Viasat / Viaplay) apparently decided with NHL to block Nordic IP's from NHL.com highlights so that Viaplay's own new NHL portal with the same highlights would get more hits.
They didn't realize that they also blocked all the video content on flames.nhl.com as well. After furious feedback they canceled this thing, or in their own words, technical problems were fixed as they didn't confess what they were doing.
-I can use NHL.tv (as I have Viaplay subscription), but only through browser. Android app and chromecast would give a bit better quality and a lot better usability but that's a no.
-NHL's shop doesn't not deliver to Finland, the international version has a really crappy selection (only two Flames hoodies, for example)
Well, at least there are no blackouts.
King In The North
Sean Bennett
King In The North
Sean Bennett
This is an excellent way to describe how I view league's mindset. I can get that vibe very clearly with their constant references to the good ol' days from advertisements, analyst segments etc.
King In The North
Sean Bennett
Thank you everyone for taking the time to read!
It's also very clear to me at least that the league views their popularity and growth as fine and don't see any reason to change. Revenue is growing well and relatively close to the NBA's and there are some growth in non-traditional cities.
If we are talking about hockey in general, there isn't much NHL could do to grow the game here (Finland): national team and Liiga are a big thing for those who like hockey, NHL won't really gain any new fans for the sport no matter what they do. It's more about giving a middle finger to loyal fans who go through a lot of **** just to watch their favorite team to play.
But at the same time it shows how NHL's marketing department has lost their grip of reality. Allowing high quality youtube clips for example, like you said, would only be good thing for the sport.
If you want future topics to write about:
Is it even possible for NHL to get more publicity in NA? I remember reading an article few years ago that argued a strong correlation between TV popularity and time of commercial breaks in four or five biggest pro sports in NA. Simply put, if the sport has a lot breaks (time for commercials), networks are more interested in those sports as they can make more money. And of course they promote those sports more. There used to be only two 18min breaks in hockey, but they've added 3 commercial breaks for each period. NFL is really popular, there's like 15min of gameplay and a lot of time for commericial. Soccer on the other hand...
There's of course always the "true" fans that follow the game (whatever it is) anyway, but TV time can do a lot to get the attention of those casual fans that NHL needs to grow the game.
King In The North
Sean Bennett
Wow thanks for adding that! That's an interesting correlation I'll definitely look more into. I have to wonder if it's just a matter of more promotion from the networks, then it comes back to: what is the NHL going to present to the audience? Last year's Hockey Night in Canada debacle is a good example of turning even your "true" fans away too.
Just curious, how popular is the NHL in Finland? and based on your post there is no easy way to access games/content?
Really hard to estimate how popular it is. I've been a hockey fan for well over 30 years (I'm 36), and I remember starting to pay more attention to NHL in the 1980's because of Kurri and Gretzky. Back then there was basically no coverage, other than maybe 1-2 minutes every Saturday during sport news. I'm from a small town that had 5th tier mens team, so there was no "competition" between the local team and NHL. NHL seemed more interesting and there were Finnish stars
To get back in the topic of increasing NHL popularity. I know there's a lot of hockey fans here that do not care much for NHL and rather follow their local Liiga team. There's not much NHL can do to make those people NHL fans.
It it easy to get NHL games here, Viaplay is 30€/month and you get lots of other stuff as well (Major European Soccer leagues, Champions League, NFL, Rugby etc). I can suffer that but I understand if it's too much for younger people like students. Easy? yes. Cheap? I can't really say.
And of course there's the thing with time zones that nobody can do anything with. If you are a casual hockey fan, you'll follow Liiga and the National team. If you somehow become a fan of an NHL team, you'll find a way to watch the games but it takes some dedication to the sport and the team. In my case it's waking up 4AM or going work 10AM after watching the game. It's definately worth it because it's the Flames, but I understand why other people might just prefer Liiga.
